Munich Re said today it expected to receive claims for cancelled or postponed events because of the coronavirus crisis in excess of €1 billion this year after it posted a 65% drop in first-quarter profit.
The German reinsurer, which joins a raft of insurers warning of threats to their business, had already said it would not meet a profit target this year.
In a statement accompanying its quarterly earnings, Munich Re said it was retracting two other profit targets and "faces a significantly higher risk of all its target figures not being attained".
Finance chief Christoph Jurecka said, however, he would be "very surprised" if the company failed to post a profit in 2020.
"Uncertainty is extremely high," he told journalists by telephone. "No-one knows how this pandemic will develop."
Profit in the first quarter fell to €221m, down from €633m a year earlier.
Event cancellations and postponements made up the bulk of €800m in coronavirus-related losses in the quarter, it said.
Claims for cancelled and postponed events may exceed €1 billion this year, Jurecka said.
The company also expects it will begin to see claims in its life insurance division resulting from virus-related deaths in the US in the second quarter, he said.
